Friday, May 27, 2011

May 27th (Arbel Synagogue, Arbel Cliffs, Ruins of Ancient Tiberius, Jordan River Jeep Trek)

So we discovered that the people who were sick were actually not dehydrated. It was definitely a virus and it hit most of them really hard. Anyone who was sick was given the option to sleep in today and miss the morning stuff and we picked them up again at 1pm for the rest of the day. Our morning group had 33 people in it...out of our normal 72. So we all hopped on to one bus which was eventually named the "Not sick" bus. Then when we picked up everyone else they just had to get on the "quarantine" bus. Haha. From what I could tell most of them are feeling pretty good today. But yesterday and part of the day before were not very fun. Thank goodness I didn't get it.

It is like a hurricane here right now...there is no rain but the wind is completely insane. I feel like all of the trees are going to fall over. It is cloudy for once though. So maybe there is a possibility of rain...I dunno. Someone actually told me that we are expecting a thunderstorm tomorrow...which will be interesting if it holds of until tomorrow night because tomorrow night we are going on a night boat ride on the sea of Galilee...

Today was a pretty good day. The morning was nice because the group was so small. We started off at the ruins of Arbel Synagogue. It was a pretty small location. The synagogue is from the Byzantine Era. Mark launched into a "sermon" about prayer and we were given some more devotional time to think about two phrases "Give us TODAY our daily bread" so basically about not worrying and "How am i sanctifying the name of God". It was nice to have some devotional time because we are constantly just go go go that it's hard to get that on our own.



After that we did something really cool. It was good the sick people didn't come because they would've had trouble. We went on a downhill hike. And when I say downhill...I mean DOWN hill. I will let the pictures do the talking. I'm sure I will be feeling it in the morning!
 This is towards the top.
 At one point the cliff was basically flat and they had added in hand ropes that we could hold on to too help get us down. I feel very good about myself for actually doing it.
 I am at the bottom. They are coming down.
 They are in the middle.
 These are some caves at the top that were blocked off for safety reasons. Otherwise we would've hiked up to them.
At the bottom there were these two horses that weren't pinned in. Mark was trying to give us a "lecture" but they kept interrupting by getting in everyones faces. It was pretty funny.

After that we stopped at some more ruins. I wasn't to thrilled with the last place we went, ancient Tiberius because it looked just like a lot of what we had already seen and Yosi played his flute for us again, which was nice. But it was kind of a boring site. Here are some pictures:

After that we went back to Ohalo and picked up all of the sick people and headed to lunch. The place we stopped had many option and I went for the Israel version of Burger King. Not sure what it was called because it was written in Hebrew but it was tasty. They had really cool superman toys and I really wish I had gotten a kids meal but I wasn't thinking straight :)

After that we piled into some jeeps again for another jeep trek. This one was totally different because unlike the first which was in a vacant dessert this one went through the wilderness. I got whipped in the face and back by multiple branches at times when I wasn't paying attention. We even drove through parts of the Jordan River at times. People were also given the opportunity to be baptized in the Jordan River. As good of an opportunity as that is I decided not to give in to Tourist baptism, but it was cool to watch everyone else. I was covered in a layer of dust afterwards. I'm still not even sure taking a shower got it all off. I have one really blood shot eye now too because I think I got to much dust in it...but anyways, here are some pictures to tell the story :)
 The crew in our jeep!
 The jeep behind us!
 I think these are ruins of Beth-Saida? I could be wrong.. I was so hot I kinda wasn't paying attention to what was being said. That usually happens in the afternoon...haha
 This kinda gives you an idea of what we were driving through.
Baptisms in the Jordan River!!


Now we are back at the hotel chilling. Tomorrow we don't have to get up as early!!!!!!! You have no idea ho exciting that is. We have been waking up at 6:30am basically every day since we have gotten here. Tomorrow we get to sleep in until 7:30! Woot! Haha :)

Oh and I forgot. On the ride on the bus home from the jeep track I sat next to 4 year old Ellie. I'm glad she's here on this trip. She's such a little bundle of energy and makes me not miss home as much. I gotta get some kiddo time here somehow. :)

I just had the most amazing ice cream EVER. Though people are saying it is Gillato (spelling?). I don't care it was amazing!! I wanted more. It tasted like mangos!

That is all! Hope everyone at home is good :)

-Wendi

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